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stronomers have discovered the closest black hole to our solar system — it's just 1,000 light-years away.
Scientists from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) detailed the findings in a study published Wednesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Since black holes exert a force of gravity so strong that not even light can escape, you can't see them directly — but you can see some of the stuff that orbits them. That's how the researchers stumbled upon this black hole. They were studying double-star systems and noticed that one of the stars they were watching was orbiting an invisible object every 40 days.
Image: In this computer-simulated image of a black hole, the black region in the center represents the event horizon, where no light can escape the black hole's gravitational grip. NASA, ESA, and D. Coe, J. Anderson, and R. van der Marel (STScI)
